Sacrilege panel seeks fresh reply from ex-DGP Saini

Saurabh Malik

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 10

A day before his retirement on June 30, then DGP Sumedh Singh Saini finally responded to queries sent to him by the Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) Commission, which is probing the incidents of sacrilege in the state.

Available information suggests that Saini’s replies do not specifically answer the queries posed to him. The commission has set July 15 as the deadline for him to furnish a fresh reply. Justice Ranjit Singh has also written to the Punjab government that it may consider Saini’s reply for giving a fair chance to all before eventually submitting a supplementary report.

In his reply, Saini is said to have referred to a telephonic conversation he had hours before the police opened fire during an anti-sacrilege protest at Kotkapura (Faridkot) in October 2015, indicating that the top brass was cognisant of the developments.

The commission has already recorded that then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was contacted by then local MLA Mantar Singh Brar before the firing incident and had issued “some directions” for handling the situation. The directions were issued through the then DGP, the commission recorded in one of its orders. Badal, so far, has declined to furnish information sought from him. He has told the commission that his party (SAD) has rejected the panel.

Saini’s name had surfaced in statements recorded by the commission in connection with the happenings after the desecration of ‘birs’ of Guru Granth Sahib in 2015, prompting the panel to shoot off a communication to him in September last year.

The commission had given Saini time till November 6, 2017, to respond to the communication sent to him. He was asked to appear before the commission in person or through his representative. The option of submitting an affidavit was also given to him.

Saini did not respond to the communication for nearly seven months, giving the commission the liberty to draw its inferences on the basis of the material before it without the then DGP’s account.

He responded to the communication on June 29. The letter was received by the commission on July 3, while it submitted its report to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on June 30. Saini was removed as the state police chief in October 2015, shortly after the Bargari sacrilege and the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan firing incidents.

Delayed response 

• The Justice Ranjit Singh Commission had given Sumedh Saini time till November 6, 2017, to respond to the communication sent to him.
• He finally responded on June 29 this year, a day before his retirement.